


made your mark on me (a golden tattoo)

by spacelabrathor



Series: all the kingdom lights shine just for me and you [2]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-13 16:18:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17491256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacelabrathor/pseuds/spacelabrathor
Summary: When you’d received news that Asgard’s army was just a few day’s ride, having doubled back to cut off the Svartálfar horde before they had reached the outer foothills of the capital city, you’d felt your knees grow weak. Knowing that after months of aching, insurmountable distance, Thor was near enough to feel.It had seemed like a sensible plan at the time. Sneak out beyond the city gates in hooded cloaks with saddlebags heavy with provisions, leaving a signed and sealed letter on your pillow assuring your safety and prompt return.Now, after five hard days of riding, weighed down under rain-soaked cloaks, seeds of doubt have taken root in the far corners of your mind.





	made your mark on me (a golden tattoo)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [captaincastle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/captaincastle/gifts).



Everything is slushy gray and nipping winds as slowly you make your way across the moors. You grip your shawl tighter around your throat, peeking out from under it as your horse picks his way carefully over terrain of scattered stone, slick with mist, and scrubland that catches on the ankles of your boots as you ride through.

Ahead of you is Sten, head of the palace guard. Stoic aboard his vast mount, droplets of water gathering along the broad expanse of his hunched shoulders.

He’s not happy to be here, leading you out across the rolling landscape, where arrows are still lodged deep in the earth scorched from warfare. But, when you’d presented the alternative, you going alone, he’d given you a long, hard look before exhaling and signaling for a stable boy to ready your mounts.

Riding at your side is Tove, your chambermaid and closest confidant, an ever-present source of warmth and comfort in this barren land. Her eyes had lit up conspiratorially when you’d whispered your plan to her over breakfast a week ago, always eager to leave the castle walls and go on an adventure.

But the road has been long and you’ve all grown weary. It’s an odd relief to see the signs of war increase with each passing mile, singed patches of prairie grass and abandoned shields littering the ground, because it means you’re closing in on your goal.

It means you’re close to Thor.

Your husband and your king.

When you’d received news that Asgard’s army was just a few day’s ride, having doubled back to cut off the Svartálfar horde before they had reached the outer foothills of the capital city, you’d felt your knees grow weak. Knowing that after months of aching, insurmountable distance, Thor was near enough to feel.

It had seemed like a sensible plan at the time. Sneak out beyond the city gates in hooded cloaks with saddlebags heavy with provisions, leaving a signed and sealed letter on your pillow assuring your safety and prompt return.

The note from the raven that had delivered the news of their position had said that the Asgardian army was settled down in an encampment, weeks away from the arrival of the enemy army. Digging themselves in at a location chosen for the high ground - preparing for a siege that was some still some time away, as the Svartálfar army lumbered slowly across the treacherous Asgardian terrain. You’d calculated and determined you’d have time to make it to the camp and back to Asgard with days to spare before arrows would begin to fly.

You’d just needed to see him. It seemed the only choice you had, at the time. It had been too long.

Now, after five hard days of riding, weighed down under rain-soaked cloaks, seeds of doubt have taken root in the far corners of your mind.

Tove is a silent, steady presence at your side, too fiercely loyal to complain, even as she bites back a bout of chills from the oppressive, damp air. Sten hasn’t spoken for a day, though that is not necessarily unlike him. But you’ve watched his disposition sour steadily as the journey has gone on, and it makes something shameful and selfish-feeling twist up in your gut.

But, in the distance, over the rolling hills, you can see pillars of spiraling, dark smoke, and you know, it will be worth it. It will be worth everything to see him.

You vow to repay your companions upon your return, with plans to request a new scabbard from the armory for Sten and extra lemon cakes from the kitchens for Tove, and at the first smell of smoke and ash carried on the breeze, you urge your horse forward.

Sten gives you a sidelong glance as your horse trots past his, and you hear his quiet grunt as he spurs his mount as well. Determined to stay in front of you lest some threat materializes out of the dense fog.

The last of the journey flies, the ground disappearing under heavy hooves as the horses snort and throw their heads. Disturbed by being prodded for more than a comfortable amble for the first time in days.

Your heart is in your throat as you pass the outermost rings of the camp, soldiers standing to watch as you trot by, the air steaming on your horse’s labored breathing.

It’s not long before you’re stopped by a hulking man on a stallion, halting you with a sharp shout and a raised hand. You know him to be Einar, one of Thor’s commanders. You’ve only met him once or twice in passing, but it’s hard to forget the large angry scar that travels across his cheek and down his throat.

You push your hood back and watch recognition flash across his face at the sight of you. You offer him a smile, belly flipping with nerves, and he does not return it.

“My lady,” he says, voice a low warning. “You should not be here.”

Your smile falters. “But here I am,” you say, voice strong through the mist. Slipping back easily into the role of some authority, a posture you’d abandoned once you’d ridden past the gates of Asgard for the lack of need for it.

Einar nods grimly. “Here you are,” he agrees. He gives a long look to Sten who returns the look in kind, the resigned lifting of his hands saying all that needs to be said without words.

Beside you, Tove is frowning. Chewing on her lip, shifting restlessly on her saddle. She grows fiery when people don’t give you the respect she believes a queen deserves, and you look to her and give her a smile. Asking her silently to stand down, and she does after a moment. Unfurling her brow with some effort and letting out a short, huffing sigh.

Sten is the first to speak. “Is he here, then?” His voice is gruff. Impatient. Eager to get this going, so he can go home, it seems.

Einar nods. “Aye, he’s here.” His eyes shift to you. “He’s occupied, I’m sure.”

Tove huffs next to you, loudly. Lacking in femininity entirely. “He’ll make time for his queen.”

His eyes dart to her and the dark look that crosses his face has you lifting your hand from the pommel of your saddle.

“I don’t mean to intrude, of course,” you say, voice edging a little. Daring him to raise a hand to your companion. “If you can lead us to a place to dismount and rest, we will wait for him to complete his duties before calling on him. I wish to be as unobtrusive as possible.”

Einar snorts at that like he doesn’t believe you. He gives one last disappointed look to Sten before he turns his horse with a tight hand on the reins. “Come, then. I’ll show you to the stables.”

You pull your hood back up around your face and nudge your horse to follow him.

People have started to gather, staring and murmuring as you walk by on your horse, flanked by Sten and Tove. You keep your head high and gaze forward, heart tumbling in your chest at the knowledge that he is here. Somewhere, striding about with his broad shoulders and rough hands. Somewhere out there, among the thousands of soldiers. So close to you, yet still out of your reach.

Einar leads you through the camp slowly, turning this way and that down narrow aisles and pathways of tents and ramshackle buildings, constructed of worn lumber and hastily assembled. The air is heavy with smoke and fog and the ground slops crewdly under the hoof of every horse.

It’s midday but there is no sun, oppressive gray cloud cover casting a grim pallor over the encampment that is reflected in the faces of nearly every man you pass.

The war has been long, and as you make your way through the camp, you come to understand what that truly means for the first time.

You’re making your way through a large clearing, an open square milling with people going this way and that, all with their hands full, all clearly attending to urgent duties.

You guide your horse to follow Einar with care, trying to give room to a broad man pushing a cart full of timber past you in the sloppy mud, when you see it.

A flash of gold. Brilliant and bright in the murk of this day and this place.

A gasp tumbles from your lips before you can stop it, your jaw going slack at the sight of Thor pacing through the clearing, surrounded by men you know from banquets and social hours. His generals.

They are engaged in tense conversation, the man to Thor’s right throwing his hands up and pointing a sharp finger at the man to Thor’s right.

Your heart skips and thuds so hard in your heart that you fear you might faint. You haven't seen him in months.

You’d received letters, carefully penned on mud-splattered parchment and signed at the bottom with his name, but you’ve not laid eyes on him in so very long.

Part of you had wondered if he’d changed. If he’d been injured or harmed. If he’d be thinner from months living on meager rations or if he’d have cut off his hair to be done with it.

He’s exactly as you remember, from the moment he’d left you with a lingering embrace and a mournful kiss pressed to your jaw. Leaving you behind to fulfill his duty to his country and his people. Leaving you to lean heavily against a marble pillar and wipe hard at your cheeks to hide any evidence of grief from the eyes of your staring courtiers.  

He’s filthy, covered from head to toe in a layer of grime, but his hair is spun like gold and pulled back neatly, and his face bears the open attractiveness that made your heart skip at your first sight of him years ago. He’s unharmed, if appearing utterly exhausted from the heavy bow of his shoulders.

You hear a throat clear and see Einar frowning at you where you’ve frozen. He nods towards the stables and urges his horse on, his instruction clear. Don’t bother him now.

Chastised, you go to spur your horse into movement, when your eye returns to him. Like you’re caught in his gravitational pull. Like you couldn’t stop it if you wanted to.

You half expect him to have moved through the square by then, for him to have disappeared into the throng of soldiers on the other side, but when your eyes find him, he’s stopped. Suddenly, if the perplexed expressions of his companions are anything to go by.

You should look away. You should pull up your hood and ride on and let him complete whatever business he is on. But his eyes are ocean water blue and they’re locked to you, rooting you helplessly to your spot.

You watch his face twist, naked confusion swirling across his expression for several long beats, and then your heart sinks in your gut like a stone through a pond surface when his expression drops rapidly from confusion into fear.

He takes one halting step towards you, and then two, and then he’s running. Nearly sprinting through the crowded space, slipping on the muddy ground, eyes wide with what looks like panic.

You startle at the motion, throwing your reins down and moving to dismount.

He’s to you before you can and hard hands reach up and close around your shoulders, yanking you down from your horse and rattling you to the ground. His hands clasped around you are the only thing that keep you from collapsing to the mud below, your head spinning as it struggles to right itself.

His hand comes up and cups at your cheek, smearing dirt there, his eyes wide and seeking.

“Are you hurt?” he asks, voice tight and strained. Thrumming with barely contained grief. “Min dronning, are you unwell? What’s happened?”

His hands on you are rough as he pulls you back and looks you over with darting eyes that eventually come back to yours.

Your heart thuds and lurches against your ribs and you reach for him. “Thor,” you murmur. Wrapping a hand around the strong width of his wrist. “I’m alright. I’m well.”

He shakes his head, like your answer doesn’t make sense. Still looking you over, turning your head this way and that between his hands. “Why…” He breathes out and then in, fast and labored. His chest heaving visibly beneath his armor. “Am I dreaming?” he asks, softly enough to be asking himself.

“No,” you let out a soft laugh, fingers squeezing around his wrist. “You’re not dreaming. I’m here.”

He blinks at you for a long moment, processing, and you find your face twisting into an helpless smile. So relieved to be in his presence again.

But his hands drop from your face to your shoulders and his face darkens like a storm cloud.

“Why are you here?” he asks, said quietly between you. Seriously. “What’s brought you here?”

Your eyes search his, confused, as your heart begins to sink to the bottom of your belly. “I…”

A loud crash echoes over your shoulder, a tent pole failing and sending a structuring cluttering to the ground, and it has his head darting up. Eyes flashing as he grabs you roughly to him, pressing you against his chest as he backs a quick step and then two. Bringing you along with him.

His grip eases when he sees the source of the commotion but his eyes flick up to the sky before they come back to yours. His brow is drawn, eyes darkened as his nostrils flare with labored breath as he takes you in in his arms.

Your hand is pressed up against his chest and you can feel his heart under the thick wool of his tunic. Thundering frantically under your palm.

It hits you like a physical blow that he’s terrified.

“Thor - ” you say, stomach roiling with nausea. Guilt gripping up your spine as shame heats the back of your neck. “I’m sorry - I shouldn’t have - ”

You understand all at once that seeing you here, in this context, has tipped him into bone-deep dread. That seeing you, unexpectedly, surrounded by the mud and smoke and blood he’s always shielded you from after months of absence, has set his heart to racing. That having you here, where he cannot keep you safe, has unmoored the very ground beneath him.

You make a wounded sound, your heart lurching, and that seems to jarr him. He blinks at the sound of the stress in your voice, and he reflexively murmurs, “No, no, min dronning,” in a quiet murmur as he pulls you close again. Bumping his nose against your temple as he soothes you with a stroking hand down your arm. Unable to resist his instinctual drive to comfort you, it seems.

You shake your head, feeling stupid tears prick at your eyes and shaking your head stubbornly to dispel them. Suddenly furious with yourself.

What you’ve done is foolish. Selfish and foolish, and it has you pulling back in his arms. Trying to free yourself from the strength of his embrace.

“I should - ” you say, pulling back even as his hands tighten around you. Hot emotion thickening up in your throat. “I’ll go. I didn’t think - “

You reach out blindly for your horse, for the reins, but his hand finds yours and brings it back to you. His hands closing around your cheeks tilts your face back to him and he forces you to meet his eyes.

His are dark, still. Strained with stress, but blinking slowly with effort. “Stop,” he tells you. Voice whisper soft as his hands leave your face to curl around your wrists that are trying to break free from him and go to your mount.

“My love,” he insists, stilling you when you pull back again. “Stop now.”

You’re trembling then, overcome with a cacophony of emotion you can’t even begin to digest. Swelling joy from seeing him again, from being close to him and being able to smell and touch and feel him again, clouding up in your lungs and making it hard to breathe. Red hot shame tripping down your spine, cheeks burning painfully from the stares of people around you who have stopped in place to see what has enraptured their leader so. Stomach souring and threatening to expel your last meal of dried biscuits and hard cheese at the guilt churning heavily there.

His expression softens at the look on your face, your inner turmoil laid bare for one that knows you as well as he, and he tugs you to him. Pulling you close and getting his arms around your waist in a familiar gesture that has your heart aching for home.

“I shouldn’t have come,” you whisper to him, moving with him when he begins to rock you gently back and forth. Moving his weight almost imperceptibly between his feet.

“No,” he agrees quietly. “You shouldn’t have. It’s not safe for you here.”

Your heart rattles and lurches painfully in your chest.

“I’m sorry,” you say, biting down the welling, embarrassing impulse to cry. “I’ll go. I’ll return home.”

Thor shakes his head, continuing to rock you in a quiet sway. A slow dance in the middle of a muddy square with a dozen soldiers watching. “No,” he says, thumbing gently at your jaw. “You’ll do no such thing. Not now that I have you.” He sounds sure, in spite of the heavy beat of his heart under your palm.

You breathe out, shuddering,swallowing past a heavy lump in your throat. Bringing a hand up to touch at his face, your chest aching at the feel of his beard under your palm again.

Part of you wonders if it could be wrong for you to have come, if making the journey has given you this. The feeling of your husband holding you close, the scrape of his beard under your hand.

You stand there for a long moment. Breathing to keep yourself upright, grounding yourself in the strong band of his arms around your waist. Eyes roving over his face. Greedily taking in the sight of him, though your stomach still turns. Unable to stop yourself from memorizing the smear of mud over his brow, the lines from sleepless nights around the corners of his eyes. The dark, thick fan of his lashes around somber blue eyes.

“I’ll retire,” you try again, steeling your voice in your throat. “I’ll wait for you to finish your tasks. I...do not mean to be a burden.”

Thor nods slowly, eyes searching your face. “I have some left to do still, before the sun sets. I’ll come to you, then. Once I’ve finished.”

You nod between his hands. “Okay. Alright.” You swallow the urge to apologize again, knowing it pointless, your eyes falling shut at the callus of his thumb rubs over the swell of your cheek.

He looks past you, at Sten, who you imagine is giving him the same helpless shrug he gave Einar at the edge of camp.

You shake your head against his palm. “This was my choice alone,” you say, whisper quiet. “I brought them here.” Guilt wells in your chest anew, painful in intensity.

The look Thor gives you tells you that he knows. That perhaps he was afraid that was the case.

He gives a slow, sweeping look at your surroundings. At the barely masked intrigue on the faces of dozens of soldiers who are pretending to be working around the square as they gawk. At the hazy, ashy sky and the broken arrow underfoot, half-concealed in heavy mud.

“You’re here now,” he says at last, his thumb brushing over your lower lip before his hand falls to your shoulder. “Go.” His voice falls soft as he says it just to you. Gentling at the expression you can’t seem to keep from your face. “Einar will bring you to my tent. Wait for me there.”

A snort from over your shoulder lets you know Einar’s thoughts on the matter, but Thor pays him no mind. He moves behind you and boosts you up astride your saddle with no effort at all. His hand rests on your thigh, gripping a little in the heavy fabric of your dress.

There’s warmth in his eyes when they meet yours. A flame flicker of it, bleeding in around the strain there. A quiet display of silent affection that you cling to even as Einar spurs his horse past you and grunts at you to follow and your horse steps obediently forward.

You look over your shoulder at the edge of the square, unable to stop yourself, and you find him where you left him. His hand touching at Mjolnir on his hip, a nervous habit, as he watches you disappear from view with an expression you cannot read.

You turn back then, heart aching in your chest, and focus on steering your mount through the winding maze that is the encampment.

 

 

After receiving assurances that Tove and Sten will spend the night in a warm tent near the camp’s center, you let yourself be escorted to Thor’s temporary home.

It’s a single-roomed tent, set back in the encampment where it’s quieter and less trafficked. It’s larger than other tents dotting the landscape, though not by much.

When you pull back the heavy flap, though, you’re relieved to see that he’s been living in relative comfort, in spite of the long days and hard fought battles.

The tent is clean and dry inside, with a canvas floor and a heavy bed in the center of it, propped up on a sturdy wooden frame, covered in a mess of woolen blankets that you can imagine him stretched out acrossed. A small table is pressed up against the far side, covered in blank parchment and hand-drawn maps, an inkwell and quill in the top right corner of it.

You tie the tent flap back to keep some light in it, and you move into the tent slowly. Afraid of disturbing the peace he seems to have been able to find in the quiet space. You toe off your boots and leave them by the door, and when you touch at his bed with your fingers, you end up crawling onto it with a groan.

Its plumped with goose-feather filling, soft underneath your cheek as you allow yourself to lay among the strewn blankets. It cannot rival your bedchambers in the palace, but it feels like heaven on earth compared to the hard packed earth you’d laid on the last few nights.

The setting sun is a soft light in the tent where it comes in through the open flap, and you mean to force yourself up. To get your feet under you so you can wait for Thor to return.

But sleep is a heavy, seductive thing that curls around the edges of your consciousness before you can muster the strength to fight it. You rub your face against the soft of the blankets beneath you, pulling in a deep smell of Thor that wisps around the thudding beat of your heart, feeling comfort from the familiarity of it bloom in your chest.

In the end, it’s not two minutes after you’ve lain that you’re curled up in his bed, fast asleep and dreaming of him.

 

 

A soft hand on your hip rouses you, slowly. You blink, confused as your mind swirls, trying to place yourself in the world as your eyes open to the sight of blank canvas tented overhead, lit by oil lanterns on either side of the tent.

Thor is there, sitting on the edge of the bed. Stroking over your hip with his palm, looking down at you like you contain the entire world. Face soft with the warmth and affection you’ve grown addicted to, from the adoration that had been missing from your prior encounter.

“Thor,” you croak, sitting up, sleep and emotion thickening in your throat.

He lets out a soft sound as he bends down over you and kisses you, a soft press of his lips to yours, and you groan quietly against his mouth, moving back down underneath him until you’re laid back on the bed.

He shifts, moving to press a hand to the bed next to your head as he cups your jaw with the other and pulls back for a shared breath before tasting you softly again.

When he pulls back finally, you can feel your pupils expanding behind each blink of your eyes. Your chest rises and falls and you watch his eyes track the movement. He looks down at you, somber, but with that familiar kindness behind it.

“Min dronning,” he greets softly, gently pushing hair back from your face. “My love.”

You turn your face into his palm, nearly closing your eyes at the feeling.

You sit in silence for a long moment. Soaking up the feeling of each other after so long a draught. His thumb rubs softly over the line of your cheekbone, warming the skin under the press of the callouses there.

You blink up at him, sleep slow as it clears your mind.

“Are you angry with me?” you ask, voice soft. Fearful of the answer.

He lets out a quiet breath. After a beat, he shakes his head. Just a little tilt of his chin.

“No,” he says. “I’m not angry.”

“But…” you murmur, your lips brushing against his wrist. “You’re not happy with me either.”

A small smile turns his lips at that, his eyes crinkling around the edges. His thumb trails down your cheeks and rubs over your bottom lip.

“I suppose that’s true,” he says, but not unkindly.

Your hand comes to curl around the strength of his wrist, curling over the leather bindings there. You turn onto your side to face him more fully, still laid down on the bed and looking up at him. Your heart thuds, heavy and saddened behind your ribs. Stomach souring on his disappointment in you.

You’re not accustomed to letting him down, and you find it's an experience you’ll move hell and highwater to avoid repeating.

He watches emotions play out across your expression with soft eyes and gives you a lingering look like he’s stopping himself from laying himself down next to you.

He curls his fingers around the shell of your ear instead.

“You do not belong here, my love,” he explains. His eyes move around the tent, like he’s thinking about what he’s saying.

You nudge your face against his palm again. Starving for his warmth and validation. “I belong with you,” you whisper. Stupidly, knowing that your words are born of silly romantic notion instead of any sort of reality.

But he shakes his head. Wearily, like there’s no fight left in him. Like he’s tired. “All that is here,” he says when his eyes finally come back to you. “Is blood and death and ash.”

You blink up at him, tired in the soft lantern light.

“You,” he says, leaning down to press another soft kiss to your lips. He stays close then, pressing his forehead to yours. “You are none of those things. And you should not be near them. I do not want you near them.”

You exhale shakily, overwhelmed by his presence. By the thickness of emotion in his voice. You raise your hands to curve around his jaw and pull him to you again, tilting your head up to meet him, making a soft sound at the scrape of his beard as his lips press to yours.

He pulls back after a long moment on a soft, regretful sound. He presses a kiss to your cheek, then your jaw.

“You’ll return to Asgard in the morning,” he tells you, holding your gaze until you nod. “It’s not safe for you here, even at my side.”

“Alright,” you agree. Admonished, but coming around at the warm affection radiating from him in spite of everything.

He nods, soft and agreeable. Face warmed with a soul-deep kindness that has attracted you to him since you first knew him.

He seems to remember something then, eyebrows raising on a memory. “I’ve brought food. Could you eat?”

Your eyes light and you push yourself up into a sitting position. Your stomach rumbles. You’ve eaten nothing but hard cheese and dried breads and crackers for days.

He laughs softly, his hand resting comfortably on your knee. “It’s military rations, love. I brought the best I could find, but…”

You shake your head, covering his hand with yours. If it's warm, it’s better than you’ve had, and you find yourself nearly crawling into his lap at the sight of a steaming tray set on the ground near his feet.

He grunts, appeased, lifting his arm to make room for you as you curl against his side, fitting easily against him into the space you’ve worn out for yourself over time. He picks the tray up from the ground and settles it over the broad expanse of his knees, and your eyes widen as you take in the steaming plates and bowls. Goosebumps prickling up over your skin as you bite down a shiver, belly aching for warm food.

There’s a large bowl of steaming porridge, creamy and milky and plain, but your mouth waters at the sight. Two hard hunks of bread are in the center of the tray, surrounded by a tab of soft butter and a lump of cold cheese. Roasted meat fills a small plate, spilling over and glistening with fat, a hearty, gamey smell swirling off the top in hot wisps.

Thor is watching you quietly, a sort of soft sadness in his eyes. And then he leans down and rubs his cheek against yours, painfully affectionate, and he reaches down.

He smears butter of the hard crust of bread and then holds it out to you. He’s delicate when he presses it to your lips, holding it steady as you tear a piece off with your teeth. He thumbs gently at a smear of grease the butter leaves on your lips and you watch his eyes drift a little distant at the sight.

He feeds you slowly. Intimately in the soft torchlight, bringing morsel after morsel to your mouth, pausing every few moments to pop a stray piece of food into his own mouth.

You ask him if he’s eating enough, as you nibble on a brick of sharp cheese, and he chuckles softly. Knuckling gently at your jaw, nudging you with his shoulder. “Yes, love,” he murmurs fondly. “I’ve already eaten with my men tonight.”

“Okay,” you murmur, ducking to hide the shy grin from your face as you take another bite.

You eat the rest in companionable silence and you find yourself sneaking glances up at him every few moments when you think he isn’t watching. Greedily taking in the look of him. Reminding yourself of every little feature of his face. The little lines and creases and character you’d forgotten in your time away.

He eventually places the tray on the ground and pushes it away from the bed with his foot, making a satisfied sound from deep in his belly.

He’s still fully armored, wrists covered in gauntlets, shoulders heavy with mail and gilded plate over woolen tunic. You reach out and touch at the edge of his cape, the color of shed blood, letting the soft material slip through your fingers.

His eyes find yours. His eyebrows notch up on his forehead at the look in yours. He makes a soft sound when your fingers close around the weight of his cape and tug.

“What is it, love?” he asks. Voice a rumbly husk that tells you that he knows.

You breathe in and then out. Slowly, deliberately through parted lips. The intention in his voice making something small and warm spark in your belly. Something long since forgotten.

You chew on your bottom lip as your hand goes to touch at the strong muscle along the back of his arm. “I’ve missed you,” you confess on a whisper. “I’ve missed speaking with you...dining with you.”

Your mind goes back to before. Before the war. Before he’d been wrenched from your life so abruptly. How you’d began and ended each day with him. With his smile and his touch and his weight and his warmth.

Thor leans into you and you feel his breath fan across your cheeks. Hot across your lips. He lingers, eyelids growing heavy simply from being in your presence.

Your voice is a quiet rasp when you confess, “I miss lying with you.”

His nostrils flare and you watch his eyes shade darker on a slow blink.

The change in the air is palpable.

You watch the line of his throat as he swallows. “You’ve thought of me?” he asks.

You very nearly frown. Your hand comes out to touch him. “Of course.” His eyes fall to your hand where it’s pressed against his breastplate. “Have you…” You lick your lips, feeling a stir in your gut. “Do you think of me?”

He makes a soft sound and his head turns like you’ve pushed him away. When he looks back, his eyes are hot like embers. “My wife,” he murmurs. Your eyes fall to the weight of his hand as he reaches between his legs and adjusts himself. Just a soft touch before moving away. You see the soft ridge of his cock underneath the fabric. Already a little hard. Just from talking about it. “You’ve no idea, my love. Every night. I think of you every night.”

He looks down at you, his hand coming up to close gently around your jaw, before slipping down your throat and spreading over the soft skin of your sternum. His gaze darkens in the low light. You can feel the quiet tension thickening in the air between you, growing hot and heavy like jungle air.

After months of separation, and in this moment, with him so close to you, you can think of nothing else. Nothing other than the weight and feel of his body moving over yours once again. The press of his lips and teeth against your neck. The sure plunge of his cock as he makes his claim deep within you where you’ve been achy and empty for him.

You feel something shudder in your chest as your hand slowly moves down to his thigh. “Will you make me yours tonight?” you ask. You feel your cheeks heat as you whisper, “My husband?”

He lets out a controlled exhale, his eyes falling shut like he’s in physical pain. When they open and find yours, there’s a fire in them that sends a thrill down your spine.

His hand reaches for you, a fingertip tracing gently along the lace-frilled edge of your bodice. Where it curves over the swell of your breast.

His voice is a rich husk in his throat when he asks, “My love, will you let me?”

You nod, throat clenching up around nothing. Unable to speak, feeling your cheeks start to burn with the first ebbs and flows of arousal in your blood.

Thor offers you a hand and you take it, letting him pull you from the bed and into a standing position between his knees. Your hands fall to his shoulders and you shiver at the feeling of his hand, broad and strong, as he closes possessively over the curve of your hip.

He looks almost drunk as he blinks up at you in the warm light. Dazed with pleasure already, just from having you between his hands once more.

His hand around your waist tightens as he looks up at you, his lips falling open on a soft part.

“Bare yourself to me, love,” he murmurs. “Show me.”

The naked hunger in his expression sets your heart to racing. Galloping heavily behind your ribs, emboldened by his want for you. By his desire that is plain on his face and stiffening between his legs.

You’re in a simple dress for the journey, a hunter green gown cinched at the waist, with plain petticoats beneath. The bottom inches of it are heavy with mud and mist and you itch to be free of it.

The laces are simple, a far cry from your court dressings, and a blind tug at the base of your back has them sliding loose, the weight of the dress from fabric and rainwater pulling the dress your shoulders the moment the laces loosen.

He is enraptured. Holding you close with a claiming hand, eyes like a roaring fire as you work the dress down your shoulders and arms.

He supports you with a hand under your elbow as you push it to the floor and step from it, kicking it away with a foot and stepping back into his space. Leaving you only in a thin shift that doesn’t stop the chill of the night from prickling goosebumps down your arms.

You watch his eyes fall to the pebble of your nipples under the soft fabric and you breathe quietly as his hand flexes around you. Tugs you closer, a little rough.

At the pressure around your waist from his gripping hand, you crawl into his lap, one knee settling on either side if his hips. Tilting your pelvis into his, baring your throat to the wet heat of his mouth as he presses open-mouthed kisses there. His teeth are a sharp sting on your neck as he nips you, startling a little gasp from your lungs and you cling to him tighter, your hand coming up to grip the thick braid at the back of his head.

He pulls at the shift, bunching it in his hand and drawing it up. Smoothing the rough callous of his palm over the warm skin of the backs of your thighs, making you shiver and part your legs for him. Your breath starting to come quick into the heavy air as his hand rubs over the curve of your ass and slides between your thighs. Seeking.

The first brush of his thick fingers against your sex has you jolting in his arms, whispering his name with a ferocity that stuns you. Clinging to his shoulders and cursing softly as he feels at you with a firm touch. Drawing his fingertips through the mess you’ve made and delving into you with the tip of his middle finger. Flirting softly against your entrance with a delicate stroke that has you pinching your brow and crying softly in anguish as your hands vice around his shoulders.

You’re soaked for him, a messy, sloppy mess at the core of you that’s aching to be filled.

You start to tremble in his hands and he soothes you with a soft groan of your name pressed against your temple as he closes two of his fingers together and presses them inside you.

“You’ve taken no others,” he murmurs, nearly slurring his words. Sounding amazed at the tight of you as he opens you with the press and push and bully of his fingers into your wet heat.

“No, my husband,” you whimper, clutching to him. Knowing that he knows you’d sooner die. Knowing that he just wants to hear you say it. “I’ve taken no others. I am yours.”

His hips rock, a sudden, rushed movement that jostles you in his arms, and you know it won’t be long. That he cannot stand to wait for much longer.

He moves in a rush, laying you down on the bed with chest aching care and hovering over you, his fingers still buried to the hilt in your sex. He presses a hurried kiss to your cheek, then to your lips as he rearranges you. Opening your thighs so he can fit himself between them.

You tremble out a moan, canting your hips helplessly against the rub of his thumb against the crest of your sex.

His other hand falls from your face to his waist, jerking roughly at his garments. Tugging them down with hard hands until his cock springs free. As thick as his wrist and angry-red in the soft lantern light. Aching for you so desperately, throbbing in his hand as he closes a rough fist around it at the base.

“Can you take me, my love?” he asks, bending down to breathe a kiss against your jaw. Moving in and pulling back his hand and smearing the heat of his cock against the mess between your legs. “Can you take me like this?”

You nod, frantic, your eyes locked to his. Desperate to feel the pressure and stretch of taking him after so long an absence.  Needing for him to take you apart and then put you back together in the way only he knows how.

He rocks his hips gently, just a little stutter of movement, and the snag of his cockhead against you makes your head tip back against the sheets, a breathless litany of please please please falling from your lips. Feeling a electric bolt of arousal bite through your veins at the blunt pressure.

He watches you, puffing on breath, as he aligns himself and presses. Eyes locked to yours as he breaches you, watching your brow crease on discomfort and….something else.

It feels like being split in two, the force of him entering you. Stretching and aching and making your fingers fist up tight in the bedding below you, but underneath it all is a symphony that’s just out of reach. A distant, swirling thing that you recognize but don’t understand. Not so soon, not from just this -

Thor grips bruisingly onto your hip and settles himself into you with a hard rock of his hips, and the slide of him, the fill and press and spear of his cock, springs something tightly wound in your chest free like an arrow loosed from a bow.

It feels like falling into frigid water to realize all at once you’re going to come and your fingernails claw at his shoulders as you grip him tight as it rushes up at you like a physical blow.

Your head snaps back on a strangled sound and you feel, for one blistering moment, like your soul has left your body.

It rips through your mercilessly. Your release. Makes your throat close around nothing as you spasm around his cock, hard, angry pulses of pleasure coursing through your veins like fire that threatens to consume you whole.

Your body wracks on jumping muscle and shivers, from your scalp to your soles. A whole body throe that has your lips falling slack and your eyes rolling back.

You cry for him, your voice breaking on his name, and he calls back to you. Whispering your name fiercely into the skin of your throat as he grips your hips between his hands and fucks you. Unable to stop himself from rutting between your thighs, letting out a quiet snarl through gritted teeth as he plunges into you, again and again.

“Love,” he groans against your throat. Sounding amazed. Touching between you where he’s joined to you with his fingers, feeling where you’re throbbing and pulsing on his cock. “Did you - my love, did you - “

You are euphoric, rocking beneath him from the force of his thrusts, head lolling back against the bed like you’ve got no bones. Clutching weakly at his arms, curling your hands around his elbows. Opening your legs to him and whispering praises to him. Confessing the depths of your love and your affection so lowly that only he can hear. Begging him to find his release inside of you. To fill you up. Catching his gaze with your heavy-lidded one and keeping it, reaching up to touch at his beard and pull him closer.

His breathing starts to rattle and you know he’s reaching his end, all stuttered up his chest as he desperately tries to hold you as gives himself to the mindless chase of pleasure.

He’s still fully clothed. Fully armored, even. Pinning you beneath him in his plate and leather and wool, his breeches bunched around the thick meat of his thighs and roughing up the undersides of yours on each rough fuck of his hips.

“Yes,” you whisper to him, fingers gripping in the coarse of his beard along his jaw. “My husband, yes.” Running your fingers over the strain in his brow as his hands begin to tighten around you. Punishingly tight with bone-deep possession. 

When he stills over you, it’s with a gut-wrenching groan that comes out shaky and pained. The feel of it, of his cock spitting within you, filling you with hot cum, makes you shiver as you pull him close. Pulling him down until his forehead is pressed to yours as his eyes fall closed on the soft, lingering jerks of his hips against yours.

He stays over you, his breathing labored and hot against your cheek as you feel him soften inside of you. Turning his face to rub his nose against the the hair at your temple, breathing in the smell and feel of you.

“Min dronning,” he murmurs, voice shaky with adrenaline and affection in equal measure. He rears back a little, bringing his hand up to cup gently around your jaw. Stroking his thumb over your flushed cheek. “Are you well?” he asks, softly when his eyes meet yours. Like he’s afraid of the answer.

You smile up at him, stupidly. Cheeks aching from it. Basking in the radiating warmth in his presence. A soft giggle bubbles up from your lungs, and you reach for him, scratching your fingernails through his beard.

He notices your non answer and separates himself from you with delicate care, eyes flashing up to yours at the soft hiss you make when he pulls himself from you. His eyes stay on yours when he reaches down to touch at you with soft fingers, petting gently at your entrance. To see if he’s hurt you.

“I’m well,” you say on a barely swallowed laugh. Giddiness piling up in your throat all at once, feeling like a cloud. “My husband, I am well. You are so good to me.”

His hand remains there between your legs, stroking you with feather light touches, even as the strain around his eyes fades and a small smile settles on his lips. His concern apparently abated as you feel your eyes start to go heavy at the feel of him touching you there, still. Where you’re all tender and sore and tingling.

He gets a look in his eye that promises trouble and you feel a finger slip into you, knocking a soft ahh from your lips, making your hips startle against his hand.

“Thor,” you whimper, feeling a new wave of slick squelch around his hand as he strokes your inner walls with a thick finger.

He presses a kiss to the inside of your knee, and you stop him then with hands on his shoulders. Seeing that he’s about to make his way down your body and settle between your thighs. Knowing that heavy-lidded look on his face means he wants to press his mouth to you and know your taste on his tongue.

“I want to see you,” you assure him, when he looks up at the touch of your hands. Your sex pulses around his finger, greedy for more, but he caves after a long moment. Gently extracting his hand and giving your cunt a sweet, soft pet before pushing himself up into a seated position on the bed.

You do the same, pushing yourself up on shaky elbows, until you’re seated next to him.

He looks over at you, his face softening on a fond smile. “Will you help me?” he asks. Indulgently, knowing that helping him out of his armor was one of your favorite tasks when he was home in Asgard with you.

He helps you standing with him, his hand warm around around yours. He assumes a familiar position, standing with his feet shoulder width apart, holding his arms slightly out from his sides as you get your feet underneath you and circle him. Eveying him with faux criticism, but taking the opportunity to look your fill.

The first straps are leather and underneath his arms, and you start there. Your fingers tread a known path, soothing over the worn, buttery straps and working the buckles with careful hands. They take some tugging and a firm grip, and he sways underneath you as you pull and push. Letting you push his weight around because he knows you enjoy pretending that you can.

His cape comes off then, once you finished with the first fastenings, and you drape it across the bed with care. Overly fond of a piece of inanimate material, running your fingertips over the soft weight of it as you smooth it down over the bedding, your eyes lingering on the stark contrast of the blood red of it against the light linens.

You strip him down piece by piece, falling into a comfortable routine that you’d sorely missed. Letting your hands linger whenever they brush bare skin, basking in the intimacy of the moment as his breath deepens and slows the closer you stand to him. Taking in the faint earthy smell of him as he ducks obediently to help you pull his main chestplate over his head.

He stands bare chested before you, his pants still open around his waist, and you give yourself a moment to marvel.

He’s leaned over the months of war. Still banded with thick muscle, but sharper somehow. More angular. Missing the softer curves around his hips and shoulders that came with eating rich and plentiful meals from the palace kitchen and ruling from the throne instead of the battlefield.

In a way, he’s distilled down to his purest form. You let your hands come up and touch him, your lips parting on a soft sound at the feel of his abdominal muscles as they flex reflexively under your palms. This, you realize, is the closest you’ve ever seen him, to his truest self. Thor the Berserker. The Warrior King. The Demon of Hammers.

It sends a thrill up your spine and you chew on your lower lip, letting your eyes lift to meet his.

He’s watching you in that quiet, pleased way of his. The way he had the first night, when you’d only just met him and first laid eyes on him. Watching you in a way that sees your helpless attraction to him plainly and revels in it without boasting or jest. Face softening on an expression that shows you how contented he is to be something that you desire. Someone that you want so desperately, after all these years.

His hand raises slowly and he traces the hard pucker of your nipple over the thin fabric of your shift, his eyes darkening a shade as he does. Letting his thumb catch on the ridge of it, cataloguing the shiver it sends down your spine when it does.

At his prompting, you reach down for the hem of the shift and lift it over your head, tipping your head back when it catches on your chin.

Cool air rushes in as you let it fall to the ground at your feet and he steps into you at once. Into you space, so you have to tilt your head back to see his face.

His eyes are hot and on your breasts as his hand raises once more to stroke softly at a nipple, breathing out softly through parted lips as it firms against the pad of his thumb and rolls under the pressure.

Your breasts are fuller now than they once were. Still not the pendulous, weighted breasts you’d seen on maidens when you were a child and always envied, but heavier than when Thor had first met you. Filling more of his hand.

You’re softer everywhere now, rounder over the hips, softer around the belly from the richness of Asgardian food.

A soft groan falls from your lips when he leans down to suck one of your breasts into his mouth, his arm going around your waist to hold you upright when your knees weaken predictably.

He holds you close as he suckles at you like a newborn babe, eyelashes brushing his cheeks as he worships you with his mouth. Moving to the other after a moment, closing his hot mouth around your other nipple, wetting it with his tongue and drawing it gently between his teeth.

You grunt and lurch a little in his arms, your hand coming up to grip at the hair on the back of his head. Holding him there as he sucks on you with hot little pulses that light arousal like a fire in your belly. Sharp little strikes of flint with every soft, warm suck.

You jump again on a startled moan when his free hand finds you soaking between your legs. His hand presses gently against your sex, feeling it drip and tremble against the warm skin of his palm, and he holds it there.

A hot breath rushes past your lips and you whisper his name, your fingers scratching his scalp as you start to move your hips against the heel of his palm. A soft, gentle rock against the firm pressure of his hand as his mouth continues to pull you close to a precipice with every soft, wet pull.

“Thor,” you whimper, your hips rolling against him. “I’m...I want you. Please.”

Thor lifts his head after one last soft tug of his teeth around you, making your breath catch. His cheeks are ruddy in the low light when he lifts his head to meet your eyes. The desire in his eyes for you is plain and it makes your belly tremble.

“Will you take me again, my love?” he asks, voice a low rumble as he tilts your head up for a kiss. His lips are warmed from sucking so ardently on your breast. “Can you?”

“Yes,” you whisper fiercely, your heart thudding hard behind your ribs with conviction. With want and need and love for this man.

He picks you up with no effort, his skin warmed against yours and he lays you back down on the bed with care. Letting his upper body stay over you for an indulgent kiss that you lean up into. Curling your hand around his beaded jaw and opening your mouth to him. Sighing a moan when his tongue touches yours and makes your toes curl.

This time, when he starts down your body with clear in intent, you don’t stop him. Settling back on the bed with a throaty sigh and parting your thighs for him. Petting his face as he places a gentle kiss against your belly before easing his way between your legs.

His hands guide your thighs over his shoulders and the first hot puff of his breath against you has your head pressing back against the pillow on a soft groan.

He presses his mouth to you like a kiss, open and soft mouthed. Tonguing gently against your folds with his eyes falling shut, rolling his face in the scent of you like a man starved.

Your heels dig into his back, underneath his shoulder blades. Urging him closer as your head tips back on whispered pleasure. Your skin prickling up at the breath of a cool draft whispering through the tent.

The press of his lips against you feels like coming home. For both of you, you think. Your hips lift from the mattress on a honeyed swell of pleasure and his hands close gently around them. Grounding you, pulling you back against his face as he revels in the intimacy of knowing you this way.

You feel the heat of his gaze and it pulls your eyes open, falling down to meet his. The sight of him between your legs is as dizzying now as it was the first time, seeing this mountain of a man bowed down before you and worshipping you at your softest place.

He treats you with a reverence that he, a king, deserves, and he thinks none of it as he rubs his nose gently around the crest of your cunt, sighing quiet, contented breaths against the overheated skin there.

His eyes lack the frantic hunger from before. Void of the desperate, roiling need to pin you down and make his claim in you that had gripped up his spine and made his breath come short. It’s been replaced by an aching intimacy and warmth as he teases shallow, syrupy peaks and valleys of pleasure from you with each practiced stroke of his tongue.

You’re nearing just such a peak, your hips stuttering between his hands, when he pulls back. He rests his bristled cheek on your thigh, mouth and beard glistening obscenely in the flickering lamp light, and it makes you groan and try to pull him back to you by his hair.

His smile is utterly fond, a quiet shared thing between you, and you let your hands fall to the bed when it’s clear he won’t let you tug him back in place.

He wants to speak, and you give him the moment, even as your hips shift between the palms of his hands. Greedy and restless.

He presses his lips to the crease of your hip. “What would you like, my love?” he asks. Letting his tongue drag lightly across the skin there, pulling goosebumps up in its wake. Making you shiver and sigh.

He’s asking how you’d like to come and it punches all of the breath out of you. Arousal and affection warring in your chest like snarling beasts. Making your head spin as you try to make sense of it all.

Your chest heaves on a breath, your hand falling to curl around his ear. There are more options than you can even name. He’s known you in every way. Become acquainted with every part of you. Brought you apart with his hands and his mouth and his cock until you’ve forgotten your own name.

Your mind flashes back to nearly a year prior. A lazy day cordoned off from kingly duties where you’d spent the day in bed with him, from sunrise to set, tongue-tied and boneless by the end of it. Laying back and letting him have his fill of you. Allowing him the indulgence of every inch of your skin to be mapped under the warm, wet pull of his open lips.

The night had found you barely clinging to conscious thought. Completely wrung out by his touch and desire for you, and yet, after he’d blown out the last lantern for the night, he’d decided he’d wanted to bring you to pleasure once more. And he had - left you wracking with full body tremors that had you whimpering for him through trembling lips. Curling against him as he nosed contentedly at your hair, the smell of you still fragrant on his lips like crushed rose petals and fresh spring rains.

The soft, teasing touch of his teeth against your thigh brings you back on a whispered hiss, and when you look, he’s watching you. Waiting for your response even as the tip of his index fingers starts to trace softly through your folds.

You bite back a groan and meet his eyes. “I would like you all ways,” you say. Sincerely, meaning it, but he laughs softly, a wide grin splitting across his face. Eyes sparkling with it.

He kisses your thigh, scratching you with his beard. Making a disapproving sound with his mouth as he does. “You’ve ridden far, love,” he murmurs, shaking his head a little. “And I’m putting you on a horse first thing tomorrow for that same journey home.” You make a soft, angy sound at that, and he soothes you with another gentle kiss that’s warmed on a smile. “If I keep you up all night, you’ll fall from your mount.”

Your hips cant softly against his face when he leans down to open his mouth over you again, like he can’t help himself. Lapping at you gently a few times before pulling himself back with some effort. His eyes burning like he wants to bury his face between your legs and make you come until you’re sobbing with it.

“You need to rest,” he insists. Gently. He nips at your thigh, wrenching a soft, sinful gasp from you. “I haven’t got all night with you, much as I’d like.”

The air is heating between you, the quiet intimacy of the moment starting to stifle out under the weight of want hanging in the air.

He hovers, face inches from where you’re soaked for him, eyes on you. Blinking slowly in the dim light, eyes darkening on arousal. You know, from the look on his face, that he’s hard for you. Down where his hips are pressed to the mattress. You know that he’s ready to take you once more. That he’s aching for it.

Desire spikes in your chest, hot like an electrical charge, and you groan, fingers reaching down to clutch in his hair. “Your mouth,” you whisper, “Please, your mouth.”

He makes a sound of near-relief, nosing at you for a moment before closing his mouth around where you’re most sensitive. Working his mouth around you with intention, the way he does when he wants to bring you over the edge. Hard, wet pulses of his mouth that have you scrabbling back against the bed and clamping your thighs around his head, sending sparks along your veins. Making your blood sing and sizzle with sensation.

You make a sound the whole encampment can hear when you come. You’re sure of it, sure that you’re being too loud. That you’re being vulgar as your head presses back against the mattress and you sob with it. Overcome with way he works you through it with a gentling tongue and soft lips, drinking you in like a tonic as your muscles spasm and jump with the raw roar of an orgasm so soon after the last.

He lets you bask in it for a few long moments, pulling away reluctantly at the insistent push of your palms, as you pant open mouthed at the ceiling, groaning his name in a breathless litany that sounds like a prayer.

Maybe it is, you think, as your brain shudders and stirs and slowly comes back to wakefulness.

You feel the motion of him moving and your legs part for him thoughtlessly. Body responding to his in a wordless rhythm you both know by heart.

Your eyes fly open at the feel of him lifting off the bed, an irrational corner of your brain spiking with fear, but he’s simply pushed himself from the bed to strip of his breeches, stepping out of them and leaving them in a pile on the floor.

With the lamp light at his back, he is shadowed. A hulking presence that’s glowing low like embers in a late night fire as he kneels carefully onto the bed and settles easily in the space between your legs. Fitting himself against you with a satisfied groan as he takes himself in hand and rubs the fat head of his cock against the mess of your sex. Letting it catch where you’re still pulsing from your pleasure and letting you take and take and take him as he lets his upper body curl down over yours, bracketing you with his body. Pinning you down with delicious pressure.

“Ahh,” you cry, head thrashing to the side as your body gives and opens to him, as natural as the sunrise and as inevitable as the tides.

It’s addictive, the little rivulets of stretch and discomfort that melt into heady, mind-numbing pleasure as he bottoms out. Rooted fully in you, filling up every bit of space you have to give.

His weight is rested on his elbows above your shoulders and at the first slow roll of his hips, he tilts your chin up to meet him in a kiss. Your hands come up to clutch at his shoulders, pulling him closer as he begins to move in you.

The familiarity of it all washes over you as he noses along your jaw and sucks gently at the skin of your throat and it makes emotion well up heavy in your chest.

You cling to him, tilting your head to bare your neck to him, to the scrape of his teeth and the drag of his wet lips, and you feel your chest ache at the sudden realization of how much you’ve missed him. How hollow you’ve been without him at your side. The sudden spark of life and longing deep in you at the feel of him moving within you reveals the void that had been. The immense, aching hole his absence had left in your life. In your heart.

His lips slide over yours and you open to him, kissing him back with all that you are. Needing him to know. Needing him to understand.

He makes a sound, distraught almost, and he curls his palm around your jaw and kisses you still. Emotion thickening up the air around you, feeling the heavy thud of his heart behind his ribs where your chests are pressed tightly together, beating in time with yours.

“Stay with me, love,” he whispers against your mouth, and you nod, scratching your fingernails through his beard and pulling him back down to you.

“I’m here,” you whisper between fevered kisses. “I’m here.”

You stay like that, pressed close together, trading desperate kisses back and forth as he fucks you with hard rolls of his hips. Whispered confessions traded back and forth, voices heavy in each of your throats. Words of love and loss and comfort and prayer that you hear from him an echo back in kind. Forcing yourself to remain in the moment, here with him. To remember every detail for when you’re back in Asgard and sleeping in an empty bed.

The change in his breathing tells you that he’s close, and you open yourself to him instinctually. Drawing him into you as his thrusts grow harder, more feral. Breathing “Yes,” into his jaw, encouraging him. “Yes, my husband, please - ”

His hand falls to grip your thigh, tight in his hand, tugging you closer, as he fucks you hard. Desperate at the end for his release, rough with you in the way that makes you feel powerful and strong, because he knows you can take it.

You hold him through it as he comes to the edge of the cliff and tumbles over, stilling against you with his face shoved against your neck. Shuddering down his whole body as his cock leaps and spits his seed where he’s buried inside you. Fever hot everywhere you can touch, his chest heaving from effort as he rides out the waves of it.

Your hand finds his hair and root in it, keeping him close as your other hand strokes down his back, between his shoulder blades. Soothing him, even as you start to tremble under his weight. Overcome with emotion and lingering arousal that’s lapping at your belly and needing in that moment to be there for him.

When he draws back after a long moment, it’s to curl his hand around your jaw and pull you into a deep kiss. One that’s soft and heavy with intent, that makes you curl your body against his, wanting to be closer.

He comes down slowly, his limbs still stuttering with little spasms as he does, and he pins you gently in place with his weight. Calming his breathing with some effort and lowering his head to nuzzle at your throat. Rubbing his mouth and beard slowly, rhythmically over the sensitive skin there until it’s pinked and warm.

You whisper his name in the dim light, and he whispers yours back, like a promise.

 

 

Thor can never lie still, after. It fills him with a restlessness you’ve never understood, and he usually busies himself with puttering around to care for you as an outlet for the sudden energy.

Tonight is no exception. You think for a few, lingering moments, that you’ve got him. That he’ll fall asleep with you on his chest, so weary from laying claim to you.

You groan good-naturedly when he shifts beneath you instead, murmuring a quiet apology as he gets up from the bed and moves to the desk on the far side of the tent.

You watch as he fishes around and pulls out a stone cup that he fills with cool water. He retrieves a small wooden box next and lifts the lid, reaching in and pinching out some of the contents with delicate care.

A small touch of scent curls around you, and you realize he means to make you tea.

That takes you aback for a moment, blinking across the tent at him, slow with confusion.

He doesn’t drink tea. You wonder why he’s kept a parcel of it in his personal belongings that have been so whittled down to necessity by months on the move and resolve to ask him about it before the night’s end.

You stand then, too, your bones creaking as you push yourself from the bed. Knowing that if you stay down, you’ll give in to sleep before he can get a brew going.

You step lightly to the front of the tent, hiding yourself behind the heavy flap of it as you draw it back a little. Leaning to poke your head around the side to see out, letting the heavy flap shield your body from view. Curious as to what you’ll see.

With the sun below the horizon, the encampment is spotted with a hundred small fires, dotting across the hilled landscape. Little bundles of flaring orange and red and yellow, stoked by sleepy soldiers, stretching up and over the rolling plain as far as your eye can see.

A cold breeze wisps past the tent, and you shiver, goosebumps prickling up over your naked skin. It will be a cold night.

The scene is beautiful in its barbarity, and you find your chest aching for the thousands of men bedded down on sodden sleep rolls. Thor’s men. Your men. Sleeping in chilled mist that hangs low to the ground and thickens the air and missing their families and home.

You’ll ask Thor about it in the morning. Ask about the road ahead. Ask how long it will be until they can all come home. Until you have your husband in your home and in your bed once more. You’ll ask him this tomorrow.

Tonight, you’ll simply be. With him.

He comes up behind you with a gentle touch between your shoulder blades so as to not startle you. You feel soft fabric at the back of your neck and you turn to him, curling your shoulders in as he wraps the heavy weight of his cape around you. Enveloping you in warmth and comfort and the smell of him, and you rub your nose soothingly against the familiar material.

He comes to stand behind you, letting his arms come around your waist to pull you back against him. He hands you a cup, lighting it with a careful spark before it reaches your hand, and you watch the water flash and then steam, the immediate wave of herb and flower scent making you sigh contentedly back against his chest.

You lean against him, your back to his chest, and take careful, indulgent sips. Feeling it warm you to your toes, a comfort from home you’d missed these days on the road.

Thor is a pillar behind you, holding your weight with no effort. Rubbing his cheek absentmindedly against your hair as he looks over your head out at the encampment. At the fires lighting the landscape and the stars in the distant sky overhead.

“Come to bed,” he murmurs after a minute. Pressing a soft kiss to your cheek. “You’ll freeze.”

You nod agreeably and finish your tea. You look back up at him over your shoulder.

“Why is it you have tea, all the way out here?” you ask, mouth turning up on a smile. “Have you taken the habit?”

Thor shakes his head and his expression turns a little sheepish.

“What is it?” you ask, nudging him. Voice warm like a summer day with fondness you cannot contain. “Why carry it all this way if you do not partake?”

He shrugs, a little helpless. He meets your eyes and says, “It smells like you.”

That takes your breath away for a moment. Staring up at him as your face twists into something that looks like overwhelmed adoration. It hits you then, looking up at him, how much it will hurt to leave him in the morning.

You say as much, a whisper in the misty air.

Thor looks down at you and shakes his head softly. “None of that, love,” he says. “Not tonight.”

He bends down to lift you, scooping you into his arms like a bride, his cape wrapped tightly around you and trailing down to the floor.

He turns and steps away from the tent entrance, letting the flap fall heavily closed behind him. He carries you through the tent as he stops at each lantern, holding you up so you can carefully extinguish them one by one.

Darkness descents in the tent, a heavy, comforting thing, and he lays you down on the bed with such care that your chest aches. You lay back and allow him to pull blankets up around you and turn to cuddle up against him when he lays down beside you.

Tomorrow morning will bring you grief anew, the likes of which you’ve not yet seen. You know, as you feel sleep start to tease at your mind, that riding away from him will be one of the hardest things you’ve ever done. But that it is something you will do. The least you can do, truly, in the face of the hardship borne by Thor and the soldiers here, day by day.

But, not tonight. Tonight you are here. You are with him. Your husband and your king. Tonight you will fall into a deep, dreamless, comforted sleep that feels like home. Tonight you will smell him and feel him beside you. Tonight you will fall asleep to the feel of his nose pressed against your hair and the steady, rhythmic beat of his heart.


End file.
